


A Dozen Roses for Your Heart (for I hope it is mine)

by BouncyBrittonie



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: If You Squint - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Matchmaking, Prompt Fill, Superfamily (Marvel), Wooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 22:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15059285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BouncyBrittonie/pseuds/BouncyBrittonie
Summary: I meant more my... attempts to woo you.” He squeezed their joined fingers. “It was not my intention to leave you hanging. In fact… it would have most likely been my confession.”Tony didn’t utter a word, tensed, then relaxed, tucked his face into Stephen’s neck and released a hot sigh of a breath against his skin. “How… how would you have done it?”





	A Dozen Roses for Your Heart (for I hope it is mine)

**Author's Note:**

> For the anon prompt: Ironstrange and Flowers.
> 
> I am so rusty guys, please forgive me.
> 
> I also butchered the Italian language. All because I love Nina very much and wanted to add in some Italian endearments.
> 
> I am also a sadist that loved the type of torture that Stephen was under in Infinity War. So sue me.

“Flowers, Peter?”

“Yes! Flowers!” Peter had his hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate, for however far the young one was into college, Stephen didn’t want him falling into the drudgery of caffeine addiction at such a young age. “Dad loves flowers! You wouldn’t know it, but it’s totally a way to woo him!”

“Just... handing him a bunch of flowers.”

“Well of course not that simple! It’s gotta be something that means something, you know? Otherwise it’s just gonna be awkward, like ‘here you go Tony! He’s an unprompted gift! and then Dad is gonna be ‘uhhh-‘ and you’re gonna be ‘...’ and it’s just not going to work at-“

Stephen raised a hand to ease Peter’s excitement. “Unique. Of course.”

“You’re an amazing sorcerer, Mr Strange! And you love my Dad, you’ll figure something out!”

“And you just _happen_ to be so sure that your Father likes-”

“Dude! Seriously! You’ve got nothing to worry about!”

 

\----------

 

“Jarvis, buddy! Think you can put a fresh pot of coffee on?”’

“Sir, I highly suggest that you take yourself to bed. You have been working for eighteen hours, and Master Peter is due back from his patrol. You do not want to suffer though your young charge mistakenly reporting back to Miss Potts, or Mister Strange for that matter.”

“Are you saying that my boy can’t keep his mouth-”

“That is exactly what I am saying, Sir.”

Tony was bent over his work bench, soldering goggles in place. He knew that Peter was on patrol, however his vitals reported that it was a slow night. Jarvis was so kind as to report the young man’s location beacon disappearing as he entered into Doctor Strange’s Sanctum in the heart of New York, but Tony didn’t panic in the slightest. His son was very close to the Sorcerer, and his heart skipped a beat as he imagined Peter sitting comfortably in one of Stephen’s high backed chairs. Maybe sipping at a cup of tea. And across from him, with an impossible air of grace and calm, Stephen Strange, a gentle smile on his lips, blue eyes simply glittering in the soft light through the stained glass windows-

“Sir, you appear to be soldering into the table-”

“Son of a-“

While he was distracted, Tony did not notice the sparks of a magic circle appear in the corner of the room. It slowly widened, showering magic over the table and the floor, and a long slender arm clothed in royal blue stretched out, leaving in its wake a single long stemmed rose. A little notecard attached to it with a curled gold ribbon.

Suddenly, Tony straightened, turned around on his heels, and stared straight into the corner, only catching a few stray sparks as the magic circle disappeared.

“What-?”

Tony gently padded over to table, fingers gently brushing over the stem of the rose, it’s elegant leaves, all traces of the thorns removed. It’s full lush perfect petals caressed his lips as Tony brought it to his nose to breathe in deeply.

“There is a card, Sir.” Jarvis caught his attention, and Tony’s fingers slowly turned the tag in his grasp.

_Tony, wont you get some sleep? You are even more beautiful when you are well rested. Such a sparkle in your eyes._

It wasn’t signed, but Tony just knew exactly who the gift was from. It didn't matter about the mysterious infiltration of his sealed lab, only really accessible by magic. It was that Tony could close his eyes and along with the perfume from the rose, he could trace Stephen's signature cologne in the air.

Tony smiled, feeling as though he was wrapped in an embrace, even though he was alone in his lab.

 

\----------

 

Throughout the week, Peter always arrived home to a smiling Father, and another rose added to the vase that Pepper had given them one Christmas. A needlessly adult gift for their 'bachelor pad', she joked. It took pride of place on the mantel above the fireplace, and the flowers looked full and lush and, surprise surprise, like they were kept perfect by some sort of magic.

Tony was quiet that week, suspiciously so, but the gentle look of calm on his face, the way he tried that little bit more to sleep, to have more than a cup of coffee when he sat with Peter in the mornings, called him _bambino_ at every available instance, Peter knew that things were okay.

And when he was on his late Tuesday night patrol, he stopped off at Doctor Strange's sanctum like always, they sat mostly in comfortable silence. He didn't want to push the issue, didn't really want to ask how things were going, it was bad enough that he felt like he had... pushed, in getting his Father and Mr Strange together, but his spidey sense resting in the back of his brain told him that it was only really a little nudge on their way to happiness.

But Mr Strange was wearing that same gentle smile that Tony wore, and Peter didn't need his powers to know if things were okay.

As Peter went to leave that night, it seemed like Stephen had built up the courage to show Peter something, and as the young man took the offered phone, with the Sorcerer's tentative question, Peter couldn't help but grin.

"No way, Mr Strange, Dad will _love it._ "

\---------

It had been a few days since Tony had found any of Stephen's roses, had detected a trace of his sorcerer's cologne in the air, and seeking out Stephen was becoming more and more an option. His heart had sunk deeper and deeper into his stomach.

This was a game, wasn't it? Show that you care and then not utter a word?

He was tempted to seek out Peter, just to make sure that Stephen had not left his son too, when Peter woke him almost at midnight, dressed in his Spider suit, only his mask missing, tears in his beloved son's eyes, saying that Stephen was gone. A wrecked sanctum in his wake.

The flowers on the mantelpiece wilted in their vase.

 

\----------

 

They had found Stephen with help of Wong, who they found in another room, bound and gagged, magic sealed with special gauntlets. Cloak bouncing around furiously in a sealed and chained fiberglass box.

It had been child's play to locate Stephen once Wong's newly freed magic had been able to trace Strange like a blood hound. They were met with Stephen's screams of pain, and Tony was overcome with an anger not often felt, a rage boiling beneath his skin, making him grit his teeth. The minion controlling the mystic needles piercing into Stephen's magic essence but not harming his skin was no match for the full blast of Tony's suit, and it would have been comical for Peter to watch the man get blown into the wall if it wasn't for him spinning his webs around the true perpetrator when he came running.

Of course, seeking the infinity stone that Stephen kept safe.

Tony was out of his suit and on the ground next to the sorcerer, pulling him into his arms where he had fallen from his magical suspension. Didn't want anything but cloth between them, needed to feel Stephen's warmth beneath his hands.

"Stephen! _Caro-Cuore mio_ \- I can't- no- I'm so stupid-"

"Darlin-" Stephen reached up to Tony's face, but in his haze, missed, and stroked his collarbone instead. "-ou're not making any sense."

“You’re telling me that the great Sorcerer Stephen Strange never learnt to speak garbled panicked Italian when he was learning everything about the mystic arts?” Tony laughed, albeit a little hysterically, and brushed back Stephen’s sweat soaked hair. “Jarvis! Buddy! Eta for medvac?”

“Mr Wong is standing by to open the portal.”

“ _Bambino_ \- Peter- help me, please-“

 

—————

 

Stephen woke in stages. 

He was in a soft bed, softer and more comfortable than any hospital bed that he had the pleasure of staying in. Glimpses of a long blonde haired doctor tapping at the blue glow of air born screens, turning to look at him and smile, before spinning on her heels to greet the familiar distant voice that Stephen could not recognize in his haze.

Then the sky changed, a soft golden glow that turned the white of the sheets he was wrapped in the color of honey, and illuminated the hair of his dear visitor like a halo.

“Peter.” His voice was rough, but he couldn’t help but smile when his young ward guided a straw to his lips and he gratefully took a drink. “Clever boy. It was you.”

“I- uh.... Yeah.” Peter gently curled in on himself, staring into his lap. “I missed our Tuesday night, went on patrol later, I was going to catch you another day, and I was passing, and I felt... wrong. If I had only been there sooner- I mean I could have- Your poor sanctum, place was trashed.”

“Things are things. Not to be so bold, but there is only one of me in this universe.” Stephen closed his eye and reached out with his hand, and a gentle lick of magic pressed under Peter’s chin and coaxed his head up. “And you saved me.”

“Helped.” Peter grinned, more joyous this time, and reached a hand to cover Stephen’s. “No more magic, sleep.”

And he did.

 

\----------

 

Stephen woke once more, and the stars were out, seen clearly through the wrap around windows of his room. His mind was alert, even if his body was exhausted, and he closed his eyes and let himself come to tune with the universe around him. 

He could hear the gentle rush of the ocean below, the waves lapping on the clean sand. The night was clear, but there was a storm brewing in the distance, but the Sorcerer did not feel the least bit afraid. The building was solid, laced with Tony Stark’s tech, and all its inhabitants slept soundly.

His doctor was in her room to the right, down the hall, the wireless pads dotting his body sending their signals to the screens by her bedside. Wong was a floor down, and he could tell that he had tried to meditate but ending up falling asleep instead. It made him smile, almost laugh if he could summon the energy, and he was glad his friend was near. 

Peter was curled up in Tony’s room, absolutely dwarfed by the bed, more than big enough for the both of them and he felt a stirring of affection in his chest of keeping the young man safe, just like he did for him.

As for Tony…

“Bold, Stark, very bold.”

“Mmm, you’d forgive me for being so bold, considering how you filled up the vase in the living room. Left little love notes sprayed with your cologne.” Tony was tucked into Stephen’s side, laying on the bed next to him, sharing his extra wide pillow just like he had planned it that way. “Or was I wrong?”

“Right as always, my darling.” Stephen couldn’t help but turn his head to nuzzle against Tony’s forehead, breathing in expensive spiced shampoo and letting his body relax into the man’s hold. “I have a feeling that an apology is in order.”

“For getting yourself kidnapped and worrying my son? Not something I hope you did on purpose.” 

“As self serving as it sounds, I hope it wasn’t just Peter who was worried for my safety.” Stephen took the way that Tony threaded their fingers together as a sign that his genius was more than a little worried. “I meant more my... attempts to woo you.” He squeezed their joined fingers. “It was not my intention to leave you hanging. In fact… it would have most likely been my confession.”

Tony didn’t utter a word, tensed, then relaxed, tucked his face into Stephen’s neck and released a hot sigh of a breath against his skin. “How… how would you have done it?”

The golden glow of his sorcerer's magic drew Tony out from his shell, and he could feel a warm summer breeze on his skin. Slow lazy circles, through Stephen’s magic portal, he could spy a stunning field of flowers, as far as his eye could see. It was a perfect blue sky day, fluffy white clouds and beams of sunshine streaming through the leaves of the tree they were peering out from under. Upon the thick grass was spread a red and white check blanket, with an old fashioned picnic basket, and a fancy bottle of wine.

“Smooth bastard.” Tony chuckled, suddenly breathless, and Stephen’s circle disappeared in a shower of sparks when chapped lips brushed dry and chaste against his cheek. “Such an old romantic.”

“I have to admit, I had some help.” His arm moved to wrap around Tony’s shoulders and to carefully card his fingers through his silky black hair. It was thick and lush and if he let his mind drift to the future, he didn’t need his universal foresight to know that he would more than enjoy these gentle, quiet moments. “And… what do you think you would say?”

He was surprised to feel Tony push himself up onto his elbow, and hover there until Stephen’s eyes met his. “Ha, _caro_ , you’re not gettin’ off that easy. I fully expect this date, and you can get your answer.” Stephen didn’t have to wait, however, for Tony to lean down, and gently press his lips to his, as soft as the brush of the petals of a flower.

“Just a little bit of a hint though.”


End file.
